This invention is related to railway hopper car gate assembly and its method of construction. It is particularly directed to a railway car hopper having downwardly and inwardly inclined side walls and end walls defining a rectangular hopper discharge opening surrounded by a downwardly extending discharge chute and sliding gate supported thereby.
Typical discharge hopper chutes of the type known in the prior art are discussed in Fritz U.S. Pat. No. 3,183,852 issued May 18, 1965, Fritz U.S. Pat. No. 3,509,828 issued May 5, 1970 and Farmer U.S. Pat. No. 3,133,509 issued May 19, 1964.
The prior construction of sliding gates for closing the discharge opening of a hopper, as illustrated by Fritz U.S. Pat. No. 3,183,852 and Farmer U.S. Pat. No. 3,133,509 for example, provided improved sealing over previous sliding gates but were not self-cleaning and were often subject to cocking and binding. The Fritz U.S. Pat. No. 3,509,828 taught the use of inclined self-cleaning surfaces and the spacing of the gate from the discharge chute to reduce to a minimum the likelihood of binding therebetween during movement of the gate. However, Fritz required extensive welding, which created distortion between the discharge chute and the hopper and resulted in material leakage and occasional binding between the sliding gate and the hopper.
One embodiment of the Farmer reference also included the use of an aluminum extrusion, the production of which is expensive, the wear and strength of which is less than that of steel. Moreover, even with the extrusion, Farmer's supporting rails were not self-cleaning.
The apparatus and method of construction of the instant invention combines the best advantages of these prior patents in a novel manner which minimizes or eliminates their inherent sealing, distortion and binding problems.